"Your Mama's Kitchen" transcript: Episode 3

Your Mama's Kitchen Episode 3: D Nice

TRANSCRIPT:

Audible Originals presents Your Mama's Kitchen, hosted by Michele Norris.

D-Nice: I didn't really eat my mother's food growing up because we didn't live together. I think that was a moment for me of being empathetic towards my own mom, because you never know what someone else's experience was. And my mom just wanted to feed me.

Michele Norris: Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up in as kids.

I'm Michele Norris. The kitchen is the emotional heartbeat of our homes. So many important things happen there. Meals … memories … laughter, and sometimes tough stuff. All of it simmers inside us forever and shapes who we become in interesting and sometimes surprising ways.

In today’s episode, I get to spend time with one of my favorite people. I really love this dude. I’m talking about the legendary DJ called D-Nice.

Michele: D-Nice stays on the road—spinning records all over the world for the biggest parties and the brightest names—Oprah, Quincy, the Obamas, The Kennedy Center. He was recently the official DJ for the Oscars.

And here's the thing: throughout his life—during the struggle years back in the Bronx when he was still called Derrick Jones, and in the full flourish of his success at this point—the kitchen has always been a space that fosters growth and community. A place that wards off loneliness. A place where he could sit at the kitchen counter and create a virtual party for hundreds of thousands of house-bound people during the beginning of Covid who all tuned into Club Quarantine on his Instagram account.

<<CLIP: D-Nice: One more time, we’re celebrating all over the world. This is what we do. Man, this is a global party. Let’s go. >>

Michele Norris: I was one of those people—dancing in MY kitchen with my entire family and watching in awe as hundreds … and then thousands … and then hundreds of thousands of people joined his nightly Club Quarantine Sessions on Instagram Live back in 2020, back at the beginning of the Covid lockdown, including celebrities like Diddy, Kerry Washington, Rihanna, and even Michelle Obama.

<<CLIP: D-Nice: Oh my gosh. Michelle Obama’s in here!

His journey to success wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Like many of us, he’s had periods of struggle and doubt.

So, we were thrilled that we could grab him for an hour to spend time with us in the studio and look back at his incredible journey—it started in a tenement in the Bronx where he lived with his grandmother and several relatives in a tiny apartment where he slept on the couch.

ACT I: D-NICE’s MAMA’S KITCHEN

Michele Norris: You have lived in many places you grew up in, in New York. And if I asked you to think about the kitchen of your youth, which kitchen do you go to?

D-Nice: The kitchen that I would go to would be in this tenement apartment that we lived in, in the Bronx. A tiny kitchen, very old. Top of a fifth floor walk-up building.

Michele Norris: So you were in good shape?

D-Nice: I was definitely in good shape. Looking back, you know, now that you said that my grandmother at the time was like 70 and she wasn't in the best of health, you know, like whenever she did get out, which she didn't get out much. My grandmother was older and the apartment didn't even belong to her. It was my cousin's apartment. And my cousin was—she was roughly around 19 or 20. It's a one bedroom apartment, probably. Probably no larger than 400 square feet. And my grandmother and I, well, great grandmother, rather. She and I slept in a living room, and my cousin and her boyfriend and their son slept in the bedroom. And we did that for years.

Michele Norris: How old were you then?

D-Nice: Yeah so it was like between 13 and 16 because I got my first apartment at 17.

Michele Norris: So in that kitchen, tell me what happened, first. Describe it in detail. What did it look like? Did it have a window? Did it have a radio?

D-Nice: No radio, no window. It was a narrow kitchen. I mean, it wasn't very big. It was probably the size of like most people's bathrooms, you know? Well, you know, inner city bathrooms: tiny, very tiny. We didn't have a dishwasher. I do remember that. We didn't have a washing machine in there. Remember, back then, people used to have washing machines in the kitchens.

Michele Norris: And they'd plug into the sink. Yeah.

D-Nice: Plug it into the sink. No, I mean it was just tiny. I do remember the wood was like a dark kind of cherry wood in there. But no matter how large or small it was, being in that house always felt like love. And I know we're supposed to talk about food and everything here or a moment that happened in that kitchen. My moment is so significant. I kept trying to think about, do I want to share recipes because I loved cooking growing up. But there was one thing that happened in that kitchen that totally changed my life.

Michele Norris: What was that one thing?

D-Nice: So my cousin's boyfriend was a security guard at the men's shelter in the Bronx, was called Franklin's Men's Shelter. So, you know, back then I was probably around 14 years old. I thought I was cooking. I was really just warming up. I remember the exact dish. I was warming up some corned beef hash and made some rice.

Michele Norris: Corned beef hash with little pieces of potato in it.

D-Nice: Yes, in the little can that they had, cracked open one of those warmed it up because he asked me to bring them some food to the shelter for lunch.

Michele Norris: Oh, he asked you to bring him his lunch, OK.

D-Nice: Yes, asked me to bring some. So you know, I made the corned beef hash, really heated it up, made some rice, some corn on the side. I don't know why I thought corn goes with corned beef hash but whatever.

Michele Norris: It was in the cupboard.

D-Nice: But, but yeah, you know, and I made this food and I remember walking the food to the shelter and it was roughly like, three miles away. And because of that trip, that's how I met the DJ, DJ Scott La Rock, who started Boogie Down Productions, and that's how I met KRS One. He lived in the shelter. Scott La Rock was a social worker at the shelter and my cousin was a security guard there. And then my cousin introduced me to Scott and that's literally how I got into the music business. Why I said it's so significant is when I shared the story with with Dave Chappelle about two years ago, he said, Man, did you hear what you just said? And I was like, Yeah, I met Scott at the shelter. He's like, No, no. He said, you walked three miles with food to feed your future.

Michele Norris: Mmm.

D-Nice: So that's why that kitchen is important to me. And that one particular dish will always be something that I remember.

Michele Norris: And you were just improvising.

D-Nice: Yes.

Michele Norris: So when you set up your own apartment, were you trying to create a sort of safe haven for yourself when you came home, you know, at 17? That's a young and tender age to be hanging your hat in your own apartment.

D-Nice: So I'm actually visualizing that apartment. And all I wanted was shelter. My first apartment because remember in my teen years. I slept in a living room. So this is my first time having my own place in my own bedroom. And it was an apartment in Harlem. What street was like on Edgecombe Avenue on 158th Street. I still remember it because my aunt lived upstairs and I took the apartment below. I had no money for a bed. I only had enough money for like two months of rent. I remember the bedroom because they had old carpet that back in the day they used to glue the carpet to the hardwood floor. And like I said, there's an apartment in the hood. So they just ripped up the carpet. So it had it still had like pieces of like the carpet still all over the place, you know, and staples in the floor. But it didn't matter because it was my apartment. You know I slept on coats for a good maybe two or three months and yeah, until I was finally able to afford my bed.

Michele Norris: And this is while you were making records. People are dancing to you, and they're your records are being spun on dance floors across the country.

D-Nice: Hip-hop wasn't making a lot of money back then. I was only able to get that apartment because I had it was off of my first album budget. But like I said, those are the days that define who I am. I loved that I slept on coats, because when I go home and I get into my bed, there are times I'm not making this up that I literally walk to the wall and just put my hand on the wall and touch the wall of my house.

Michele Norris: And what are you doing when you do that?

D-Nice: I'm like, man, I can't believe this is mine. That's real.

Michele Norris: The kitchen that you describe for us in the Bronx. You said it was small, didn't have a window, very narrow, but it was full of love. What do you do to create a space in your kitchen now? So you capture some of it because I imagine your kitchen now is bigger, it's fancier. It has a lot of stuff that you could only probably dream of when you were back in the Bronx. But how do you make sure that it has that most important ingredient, that it's a place of comfort and love and the right kind of nourishment?

D-Nice: So the way my place is, you know, I do love the idea of having like the kitchen be that that central place, you know, like, I like a big open space because I don't even sit at a dining room table. I'm literally at the kitchen counter even when I eat dinner, because that's just what I love. Even going back to my younger days and what that kitchen was like, I can't say that I want to emulate that kitchen because it was so much smaller, but there was nothing bad. I mean, that's just the way life was back then and it was beautiful.

Michele Norris: What were the early days of hip-hop like? Did you or could you imagine that it was going to become what it became, this global force?

D-Nice: You know, I enjoyed what we were doing. But just to be honest, even with like, you know, having gold records, we're still just barely making it. We're young. I mean, I was more so just excited because I was this young kid who had never seen the world the way that I did. By the time I started making music, you know, I hadn't even been on a plane. You know, like my first time getting on a plane was when we were doing the show in Rochester. And like, that was a moment that changed everything for me, like just being above the clouds. And even to this day, I still look out the window, I'm still that little kid and enjoying this journey.

Michele Norris: That trip to Rochester was interesting, though. I think read about that trip because that was that was a one way trip. That was not a round trip ticket, right?

D-Nice: It was not a round trip ticket at all.

Michele Norris: What happened?

D-Nice: Man, so here's the full story I didn't want to write about it on. There's little too much, but the full story was DJ Scott La Rock booked us a show in Rochester, our first show. South Bronx was like a kind of a local hit in New York. We didn't have like, you know, national distribution. So we had to do these little promo shows to get out. And he booked us a one way ticket because we were supposed to get the money from the promoter to get back home. And instead of getting us a room, the promoter had us stay at his mother's house and his mom was super religious. Like she didn't have a problem with us. The problem she had was that Scott La Rock brought his girlfriend.

Michele Norris: Oh.

D-Nice: And the promoter’s mom—

Michele Norris: She wasn't having that.

D-Nice: She was not having that, so she couldn't ask the young lady to leave. So she kicked us out.

Michele Norris:Oh so the young lady got to stay with her, you all had to find someplace else to stay.

D-Nice: We weren’t able to stay. She was able to stay at the house and we had no money. We had no credit cards, nothing back then. So we ended up breaking into a motel. We broke into the room. Scott La Rock slept on the bed. KRS slept on the floor. I slept on the desk and we had to leave before housekeeping came. So we were out before. We stayed there for a few hours.

Michele Norris: You got the desk?

D-Nice: At the desk.

Michele Norris: I'm sorry you pulled the short straw.

D-Nice: I mean, have you ever seen a floor in a motel?

Michele Norris: Yeah. Maybe the desk was a better choice.

D-Nice: Absolutely.

Michele Norris: Okay. All right, I stand corrected.

D-Nice: So like those early days of hip hop, you know? Yes, we we do stay in nice places now. But the early days were those were like the real struggle days, but those were the days that build character. Like we built fond memories because of them.

Michele Norris: I see you smile when you talk about it.

D-Nice: Yeah, no, I remember it. You know, I'm just happy to have these memories because there were tons of ebbs and flows, like in my entire life, you know, it wasn't always good. I'm in a very, very good space right now. But that only happened because I stayed the course and I always tried to do things that made the most sense, things that were, well, one, I always start with being kind to people. Always being willing to help is like a big thing for me.

Michele Norris: Who was your compass? Who was the voice that you heard in your head that helped you make the right choices?

D-Nice: I don't think it was one person. I'll start by saying The Cosby Show really helped me out.

Michele Norris: Really?

D-Nice: The Cosby Show and A Different World. Because I was always influenced when I was younger by television. Just about the idea of having family. You know, I had I have a big family, but, well, not that close. You know, so when you see these shows that kind of depicted like black people live in a certain kind of way, when you're like this young kid in the inner city and you're trying to, you know, you want a better life, you kind of look to those visuals. And that's what I did. So my inspiration came from The Cosby Show, A Different World. And there was this other show called The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Michele Norris: I remember that.

D-Nice: With Robin Leach.

Michele Norris: Yes. He would take you all over the world and you would see these beautiful fancy homes.

D-Nice: So I think about that show probably once or twice a week when I'm on the road, because it just reminds me of like, being this young, this young person saying, man, one day I want to see the world. One day I want to stay in the best hotels. One day I want to be able to take my family on vacation. Here we are 30 years later, I'm able to do that. And I'm able to do it in a righteous way. You know, I didn't take advantage of anyone. I do nothing illegal. I mean, nothing. I you know, I won't even take a towel from a hotel room. Like, I don't do anything.

Michele Norris: You also had some tough lessons early in life. So Boogie Down Productions, let me get the timeline right. And you produced was it your first release in 1987? Was that right?

D-Nice: Our first full length recording was in 1987.

Michele Norris: Yeah and that wound up being just a few months or about a year before.

D-Nice: Before Scott's passing. Yes. Scott passed in ‘87. Yeah, that was a tough time, you know. I just recently started talking about the incident.

Michele Norris: Yeah. If I may ask what happened and how did it impact you?

D-Nice: Yeah. So I was still living in the same neighborhood. And, you know, some of the guys in the neighborhood, you know, we're a little jealous. But we were all kids, you know. I didn't know any, I didn't even have a first girlfriend until, like, after I had a record. You know, like, I wasn't that type of kid, you know? But because of jealousy, a group of guys came up to me and said, Hey, I know you're trying to talk to my girl. I was like, 16. That's not even the vibe I was on. And one of the guys pulled the gun out, hit me in the face with the gun, and then they all ran off. So the first person I called was DJ Scott La Rock, because he was like my big brother. And he said, hey, I'm going to come over there. We should find them and just talk it out. I literally remember his words. He said, we're about to blow up and we don't want that kind of energy. We went over to the, it was the same neighborhood, but we went over to the projects where all this incident happened. This was supposed to be a friendly conversation and we ended up seeing a couple of the guys, not that was a part of that incident, but people from the neighborhood like, all right, you know, just let him know. We just came to talk and make sure everything was cool. And then they had an altercation. So then when I look back at it, it may have been a peaceful mission that we were on, but that incident didn't look like peace. You know, and we're in the hood. And those kids were they went into the bushes. They went on to the roof. It was a straight ambush and started shooting at us. And Scott, you know, he was the only person that was shot, you know, twice in his head. And, you know, that was a memory that I will never forget. I had to see that. So when you talk about choices, like I literally can be in a situation and see something happen that doesn't feel good. And then I know I have to leave, you know, because I I follow my instincts. And, you know, unfortunately, because of something that I learned early on.

Michele Norris: How did you get past that?

D-Nice: Who said that I'm past it?

Michele Norris: Hmm. Yeah. Mmhmm. How do you keep going?

D-Nice: I keep going because this is a man who introduced me to something that changed my life. So I keep going because what I'm doing has been impactful, and I'm not just talking about a Club Quarantine. I'm talking about from making records to producing to, leaving the music business and starting the creative services agency and producing websites and doing online marketing. These were all the things that I learned, from him.

Michele Norris: Mmhmm.

D-Nice: So when I keep going, that means that his memory is going, you know, the legacy continues. That is a pain that I don't think you can ever just lose, you know?

Michele Norris: Mmhmm. It sounds like he was the one who pushed you. Try something new. Because sometimes we're afraid to do that, right? You don't want to try something new because I might fail or I might not be good at it. Let me master this over here in the corner before I try it out. From what I understand, it sounds like he was the one who was always pushing you to try new things.

D-Nice: Yes. And what's interesting is when I look back, we didn't have that long of a relationship. I met him when I was 15. We were all friends for about a year and a half. So a person that had known for a year and a half of my life has had this tremendous impact. Just on me personally. You know, and to me, it's important to to be that DJ Scott La Rock to some other kid.

Michele Norris:Thank you for telling his story, because someone will hear that and understand that they can be that person.

D-Nice: Yes.

Michele Norris: In someone else's life.

ACT II – CLUB QUARANTINE

Michele Norris: Now, you know, we have to talk about Club Quarantine.

D-Nice: CQ all day.

Michele Norris: And because this is a show called Your Mama's Kitchen, I was delighted to discover that this started in your kitchen.

D-Nice: Yes.

Michele Norris: You were at the counter on the island. You had your deck out on the island. What happened that night? Was it March 20th, 2020?

D-Nice: March 20th and 21st, those were the two days that the world discovered it. But technically it started on—

Michele Norris: Tinkering a little bit ahead of that.

D-Nice: Yes. Yes. On March 17th is when it started.

Michele Norris: So, wait, Club Quarantine started in your kitchen.

D-Nice: Club Quarantine started in my kitchen. It's so crazy because the story of CQ is so beautiful. Had I stayed in in New York City, there is no Club Quarantine.

Michele Norris: Hm. Why?

D-Nice: Because part of it was the end November 2018. I decided, man, I'll be 49 years old and I never really lived as an adult in another state. I need a little bit of change. I was single. I was like, nothing's keeping me tethered to New York. By the time November hit, I was like, what am I doing? Like, I'm not enjoying New York right now. I love New York City, but I'm not enjoying my experience and I need some change. I call the moving company. I'm not making this up. I found an apartment on like an app and it was like, well, I live in downtown New York. I'm going to get this apartment in downtown Los Angeles. So I found this beautiful apartment across the street from the Staples Center, so I was happy. You know, I got my new apartment, but I didn't realize that Downtown LA was totally different than downtown New York City.

Michele Norris: Not the same thing.

D-Nice: No, not the same thing. So you fast forward, by the time I moved in, it was 2019, I spent all of my time in reverse. Now all I'm always back in New York. So I never made my house, my apartment, rather, in Los Angeles, home. So I didn't have—

Michele Norris: You never unpacked.

D-Nice: No, I had boxes in the other bed in the spare bedroom. I mean, the entire room was just boxes. I had never unpacked. I didn't have art on the walls. So when you fast forward to a year later when Covid happened, I didn't have family in LA, so I was isolated, alone.

Michele Norris: And you were still in that apartment in downtown LA?

D-Nice: I was in that apartment. You know, in a building that was just packed with people who a lot of people there didn't respect what was going on. no one was wearing a mask. And I was like, I'm not going outside. Because from what we were reading then Covid was killing people my age, you know? Like, if you were 50 and above and you caught Covid, that was a wrap. At least that's what the perception was. And, you know, I was extremely sad because I wanted to be with my family. But like I said, I was in LA. My apartment was just sad. So when I went into that kitchen and I had never used Instagram Live, like, never. I opened up my laptop. Turn on Instagram Live. Put my phone on the computer, saw 200 people in there, and I'm like, oh, that's my friend Chuck Boom. Oh, sup, Chuck. Oh, remember we used to be in the club and Brucey B you know, this DJ would play this song and I would type in Don't Look Any Further. Dennis Edwards. And just play it. And then they were all pretending to be in a club. This had nothing to do with the rest of the world. This was literally like our New York friends seeing each other and pretending to be in this club. And by the time that day ended, I was like, man I had 287 people in here this is dope. So I went from being sad to by the end of the day, I was smiling. I was like, oh, this is great. And then the next day I did it again. And I learned that you could split the screen. I called Big Daddy Kane. I called Doug E. Fresh. I called Al B. Shore. I called Bun B, Dave Chappelle. I was like, man, they got this feature where you can split the screen. Why don't you come on? I had 200 people in here and inspire them. And then John Legend came on, my numbers spiked. So it went from 280 to, it was like 7000 people in there. I didn't even have turntables at home. I went and bought a controller. I made it to this place called Guitar Center and made it there 30 minutes before they closed because that's when the full lockdown was happening.

Michele Norris: That was right around when everything shut down.

D-Nice: Yes. That was when everything was shutting down. March 20th. Had I not gone, there is no Club Quarantine. I wouldn't have been DJing. So crazy how this all worked. We had 20,000 people in there, and I saw one comment. A woman said, my gosh, D-Nice has everyone in here, the only people missing are the Obamas. And that never left my head. And I was like, man. I gotta somehow convince one of the Obamas to come into this party. How do you convince someone to come into a party that doesn't really exist but is just on your phone? But for some reason it felt real. And then that next day, you know, thank goodness someone got the word. Somehow she did get the word.

Michele Norris: So did Gayle. So did Oprah. So did—

D-Nice: Oprah. So did Ellen. I mean the important part for me when all of that happened, there was just this part of me that felt so much peace because I know that this thing I get—sorry. It's okay.

Michele Norris: It's okay. It's okay.

D-Nice: I know that this thing started with love. And it was supposed to always feel like love. Supposed to always be able to pour into people. So when those names came in, that was inspiring the world. Like, yo, we're still here together. So when I think about that, that moment isn't just about Club Quarantine. That is about that little kid that was sleeping on that sofa that walked into that men's shelter in the Bronx. With some food that changed his life. I know that that's where that part of it started. And it started with love. And it should always be full of love when I do these things. So sorry for tearing up like that.

Michele Norris: That's all right. Never apologize for that. Never apologize for allowing your emotions to flow.

D-Nice: I know that just hit me. Cause I still thought about that lil kid, you know.Fair enough. Fair enough.

Michele Norris: I think you gave people what they needed that night. People were feeling alone. We were afraid. And we were locked down alone, some of us truly alone, some of us with our families. A lot of people were actually alone. They were like you alone in an apartment. And you allowed people to feel together and to dance. And to realize that they were dancing with people half a world away. And be silly for a minute.

D-Nice: Yes, I showed it all. I could have gone to see my kids. It's not like we couldn't fly. It's not like I didn't earn enough to get myself to wherever I needed to be. I could have done that. I didn't do it because I felt like, yo people are watching and how are you telling them to stay safe and to stay at home and you're running around doing things? Like I hadn't seen at that point, like by the time I finally got to see my daughter, my youngest, four months had passed, you know, like I had never I never even not been with my kids. I was with them every week. So that was hard for me. But I did I understood the importance of what was happening. You know, you tell people to stay safe and you got to walk it, too.

Michele Norris: You recently wrote an Instagram post that was beautiful and vulnerable. And very honest. It was a letter to your younger self.

D-Nice: Yes. Yes.

Michele Norris: What was going on there?

D-Nice: That was a tough one for me, because my mom stays with me. And I guess someone from my family has sent her this picture of me when I was roughly around six or seven years old. And my mom was excited to come over like, look, I got this picture of you. And then I saw the picture and it took me back to that time. And that time was a difficult one because my great grandmother, she was sick at the time. And the doctor told her, from what I remember, that the stress of New York City was killing her. And her son lived out in Colorado. She didn't want to go to Colorado without us three grandkids. And so when I saw that picture, it took me back. It was taken in Denver. I remember the car and I was looking at what I was wearing. And I don't know, it just broke down because clearly I wasn't wearing my clothes, you know, the shoes were too big. My cousin's shoes were too big. And we didn't have fond memories from that time. there was some mistreatment by family. I just don't talk about it because I try to leave things in the past. You know, and I looked at that kid and I just saw I mean, it was me, you know, and I was like, man, to go from that kid to the life that I have now. That's why I wrote the letter to like to my younger self, you know, to because I always I stayed on the path. I was always inspired. I always wanted more.

Michele Norris: Were you writing that letter also, you're writing to a younger version of yourself, but were you also in some ways trying to be a beacon for some other person that might be going through something similar to just say it will be okay?

D-Nice: 100%. Not even just for other people, but also for myself in this day, because sometimes the weight of what happened with CQ can be heavy. For example. Walk down the street every day and everyone thanks you. And they shared their stories. Well, you're just pouring that into me like so. Like now I'm taking on that weight and, like, listening to them, which are beautiful stories. But then they make me a little sad sometimes, you know, like when you know that someone. When someone actually tells you, I wanted to kill myself. And you saved my life. But then it's not just that person, it's another person. And then I have to constantly remind them the reason why I'm vulnerable is because not that I ever felt suicidal, and I've never had that feeling in my life. But depression is real. Sometimes you can't recognize it, And I'm telling you, like, what I was feeling in the beginning of Covid was I was feeling really depressed that you could have this life. You can live a life making music, losing it. Start all over again. Lost it again, rebuilt it, was able to send my kids to school. Able to have a nice place. And then the world stops. Who can plan for that. None of us, you know, none of us no matter how much you saved. None of us truly planned for this to go on for years. Years. Man. You work hard. And then your world stops.

Michele Norris: You're at a point in your life where you're telling your story or writing a book. A nice life.

D-Nice: Yeah.

Michele Norris: It sounds like it's important for you to do that, not as an exercise in ego, but really as an exercise in survival, really.

D-Nice: Survival. Faith. Patience. Kindness. Everything that happened in my life has been other people being kind and seeing something. But what I learned from that process was, as a black man, it's okay to be vulnerable and to be able to tell people when you hurt. Because I internalized all of this growing up because I didn't know how to be vulnerable. That wasn't something that I saw growing up in the inner city in the Bronx. You weren't out there crying and tearing up, no.

Michele Norris: You weren't showing that soft side.

D-Nice: You weren't showing it. And sitting in front of that phone every day for two years straight. I know the world reopened after two years, but really for two years straight. Being vulnerable, being fun, being silly, smiling and laughing. It was sometimes when I would play a set. I would have to step off because it was so emotional to me and I would tear up. To me, that's the story. That's the only way to get to the story was to allow myself to be unafraid to share these emotions, to even experience the emotion, because we weren't really taught to do that? Not where I'm from. You know.

Michele Norris: So you give yourself permission now to do that. Oh, I have permission. Will have permission to do that also.

D-Nice: Yes going back, you know, when you think about it, it seeing that picture was part of it. It was like, man, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to tell that part of the story, you know, about that young kid. But like now, I'm proud of that kid. That's why I pinned that, post to myself. Like I said, not just to inspire other young kids, but when I'm feeling down, when I'm feeling like, man this is so beautiful.

Michele Norris: You pinned it because you might go back and look at it again. Yeah.

ACT III: RECIPE

Michele Norris: Is there a recipe that you would reach for something that that means a lot to you, something that that perhaps tastes like home?

D-Nice: Man. Well, I don't do that much cooking anymore, so. But if I had something that makes me feel like home, it's very interesting. Like when I returned home now, I didn't grow up living with my mother. Right. So. And I returned home the other day. My kitchen smelled like, just like food. I wasn't used to that because I–

Michele Norris: She lives with you now.

D-Nice: She lives with me now. And my kitchen smelled like, I mean, the entire house because it's this open space. So if you cook something in the kitchen, it's everywhere. And I'm like, my God, this place smells like food. And my mom, like, you should open the door, light some candles. And then when I went upstairs and to my room, I thought about it and I was like, man, I'm complaining about something that's actually so beautiful that my mom is here to make food in the house that I own. I didn't have a house when I was younger, and I'm complaining of food only because I spend so much time in hotel rooms that I was trying to keep my house like it was a hotel. I don't eat in hotel rooms.

Michele Norris: Right. You want it to smell like lilacs or candles or something?

D-Nice: Exactly.

Michele Norris: Not like fried onions.

D-Nice: Not like fried onions and cabbage and—but then when I went downstairs and I open up one of the one of the pots, and my mom was making cabbage, and I realized that I didn't really eat my mother's food growing up because we didn't live together. And I think that was a moment for me of being empathetic towards my own mom, because you never know what someone else's experience was. And my mom just wanted to feed me. In that very moment, like that, like really hit me on, you know, because I looked at my mom and then I just gave her a hug and just and thanked her for cooking and ate some of her cabbage.

But just looking at this, like pot of cabbage is probably something I'm going to remember because it was a moment for me of like, being like, wow, wait a minute, my mom is still here. People are losing their moms and their parents and my mom is here and all she wants to do is cook some food for me.

Michele Norris: You think she'd give us that recipe for that cabbage?

D-Nice: I mean, I don't know what she put in it.

Michele Norris: Would you mind asking her?

D-Nice: I could definitely ask her. You know what I'll ask her.

Michele Norris: We’ll share it with our listeners.

D-Nice: And I'll share it with you.

FINAL ACT // MUSIC BREAK

Michele Norris: We love to talk about kitchens. And I love that Club Quarantine started in your kitchen. But I want to talk to you about what else happens in your kitchen, too, because you're a devoted father. You wake up early, very early to make sure that you have a moment with your little girl, even though she's in a different time zone.

D-Nice: During the quarantine, that's what I would do. You know, I would wake up. You know, speak with her before she would go to school. And I'll say this when we were finally reunited, I give her the credit, too, because I lived in California and her mom was living in Michigan. We're all in the same state and city now, you know, 10 minutes apart. But then during Covid, Dylan, she really wanted to be with me. So we had to wake up every morning at like 4:30 in the morning. I'm sorry, 3:30 in the morning to start getting ready to do virtual school because she was going and she was still, you know, being virtually school in Michigan. But because she wanted to be in California with me, I would have to wake up at 330. You get me some coffee, get her something to eat so she could, you know, be prepared to learn. And then she would do virtual schooling from 7:45 a.m. until noon. And we did that every day for about seven or eight months.

Michele Norris: I’m tired just listening to you talk about it.

D-Nice: Yes. Every single day. And I was still DJing. I would go into the kitchen, cook breakfast, get lunch ready. Sometimes we would order lunch, but then I would go into my studio and then back on Club Quarantine and playing music for people. But my my kid, she was I mean, not even just my kid. All of these kids, they were all troopers, you know?

Michele Norris: Yeah, that was hard.

D-Nice: It was hard.

Michele Norris: That was really hard … I've seen you with your girls.

D-Nice: Yes.

Michele Norris: You are the epitome of a doting father.

D-Nice: And I love it.

Michele Norris: We love that about you.

D-Nice: I try to pour into them. It's funny because my daughter, my oldest daughter is 26. And she called me the other day and she's like, dad. Dylan’s in my makeup, in my room. It's like, Ashley, you're 26. You're about to get married. When is this just going to become, like, the spare bedroom in my house? Like, well, you're always–

Michele Norris: Surprise, they never go away.

D-Nice: Like, I need a guest bedroom now. Yeah, but no, but it—

Michele Norris: They don't go away, they just come back with spouses, partners, dogs and babies.

D-Nice: Aw man, but yeah, nah, I love being a dad, you know, And it's one of the things that keeps me going. You know? I love music. Obviously, music is totally like a major part of my life. But being a father is so important.

Michele Norris:: I have loved talking to you.

D-Nice:This was great.

Michele Norris: Thank you so much. Much. Love to you.

D-Nice: Love you.

MUSIC TRANSITION // OUTRO

MICHELE: The kitchens all throughout D-Nice’s life paint a beautiful picture of his journey. From that small galley kitchen in the Bronx where he made the corned-beef hash concoction that wound up altering the course of his life …. to the kitchen in his downtown LA apartment where he came up with the idea for Club Quarantine. The kitchen provided a place for D-Nice to foster his own dreams and ambitions. As you heard, he went to some tough places for this conversation. He reached back to some memories that he has kept locked away and I’m grateful that he was willing to do that and willing to talk about the importance of mental health and the practice of empathy. Notice how I used the word practice—just like yoga, or learning how to play the piano or throw a football or cook a perfect dish—the more your practice, the better you get. And empathy is something worth working on for all of us.

Now, D-Nice didn’t have access to his mom’s cabbage recipe, so rather than simply gifting a recipe to you this week, we’re also gonna gift one to D-Nice. We did some searching and found one that we THINK might be a little something like what his mama used to make, and that we hope might bring him comforting memories of love and family today. You can find that on our website at yourmamaskitchen.com, and I’ll post it on Instagram as well.

Finally, when we heard D-Nice say he loves to cook, we also learned he’d just bought a brand new Dutch oven. There’s just one little problem—he doesn’t know what to make in it! So I promised to send him my killer recipe for chili. It’s a perfect way to break in a Dutch oven. And we thought, maybe some of you might want to send him recipes for his brand new Dutch oven. Send those recipes our way and we will make sure that he gets it. It’s a small way of saying thank you to D-Nice for cooking up so much joy for all of us during the long Covid lockdown.

Special thanks this week to Crystal Carson and Clean Cuts in Washington, DC.

I’m Michele Norris. Have a glorious day and come back soon for another episode of Your Mama’s Kitchen. Thanks so much for listening. See ya soon.

This has been a Higher Ground and Audible Original, produced by Higher Ground Studios. Producers for Your Mama's Kitchen are Natalie Rinn and Sonia Htoon. Sound design and engineering from Andrew Eapen and Ryo Baum. Production support from Angel Carreras and Julia Murray. Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camilla Ther de Koos. Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman and Michele Norris. Executive producers for Audible are Zola Mashariki, Nick D'Angelo and Ann Hepperman. The show's closing song is 504 by the Soul Rebels. Special thanks to Joe Paulsen, Melissa Baer and Angela Peluso. Head of Audible Studios, Zola Mashariki. Chief Content Officer, Rachel Ghiazza. Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC. Sound Recording copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio LLC.